2. General design

2.2. Electrical design

Actuators are relatively simple, consisting of basically just a DC-motor with H-bridge and two slider potentiometers. A wiring harness connects the H-bridge and the potentiometers to Arduino (the order of the wires is designed for the Arduino Unos used in the course exercises.). In order to do anything reasonable, these devices do need an Arduino that controls them. The required number of Arduino pins is 6, including VIN and GND pins. Power is provided with a 9V battery.



Connections:


Starting point Wire color End point(s)

From H-bridge:

 GND  black   9V battery negative 
 GND  blue  Arduino ground, potentiometer grounds
 VIN  red  9V battery positive
 VCC  brown  Arduino 3.3V, potentiometers
 O2 B  green  Motor positive
 IN2 B  green  Arduino D10
 O1 B  blue  Motor negative
 IN2 B  blue  Arduino D11

From potentiometers:

Pot with rack  yellow   Arduino A4 
Pot with rack  green  Arduino A5